Part 5 (2/2)

”I didn't take it as an answer,” said Rendel. ”I thought that I would come straight to you and ask you to help me, and that you would understand, as you always do, in the way that n.o.body else does.”

”Take care,” said Lady Gore smiling, ”that you don't blindly accept Rachel's view of her surroundings.”

”Oh, it is not only Rachel who has taught me that,” said Rendel, his heart very full. ”It is you yourself, and your sympathy. I wonder,” he went on quickly, ”if you know what it has meant to me? You see, it is not as if I had ever known anything of the sort before. To have had it all one's life, as your daughter has, must be something very wonderful.

I don't wonder she does not want to give it up.”

Lady Gore tried to speak more lightly than she felt. ”She need not give it up,” she said, with a somewhat quivering smile. ”And you need not thank me any more,” she went on. ”I should like you to know what a great interest and a great pleasure it has been to me that you should have cared to come and see me as you have done, and to take me into your life.” Rendel was going to speak, but she went on. ”I have never had a son of my own. It was a great disappointment to me at first; I was very anxious to have one. I used to think how he and I would have planned out his life together, and that he might perhaps do some of the things in the world that are worth doing. You see how foolish I was,” she ended, with a tremulous little smile.

Rendel, in spite of his gravity, experience and intuitive understanding, had a sudden and almost bewildering sense of a change of mental focus as he heard the wise, gentle adviser confiding in her turn, and confessing to foolish and unfulfilled illusions. He felt a pa.s.sionate desire to be of use to her.

”I should have been quite content if he had been like you,” she said, and she held out her hand, which he instinctively raised to his lips.

”You make me very happy,” he said. ”You make me hope.”

”But,” she said, trying to speak in her ordinary voice, ”--perhaps I ought to have begun by saying this--I wonder if Rachel is the right sort of wife for a rising politician?”

”She is the right sort of wife for me,” said Rendel. ”That is all that matters.”

”I'm afraid,” Lady Gore said, ”she isn't ambitious.”

”Afraid!” said Rendel.

”She has no ardent political convictions.”

”I have enough for both,” said Rendel.

”And--and--such as she has are naturally her father's, and therefore opposed to yours.”

”Then we won't talk about politics,” Rendel said, ”and that will be a welcome relief.”

”I'm afraid also,” the mother went on, smiling, ”that she is not abreast of the age--that she doesn't write, doesn't belong to a club, doesn't even bicycle, and can't take photographs.”

”Oh, what a perfect woman!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Rendel.

”In fact I must admit that she has no bread-winning talent, and that in case of need she could not earn her own livelihood.”

”If she had anything to do with me,” said Rendel, ”I should be ashamed if she tried.”

”She is not as clever as you are.”

”But even supposing that to be true,” said Rendel, ”isn't that a state of things that makes for happiness?”

”Well,” replied Lady Gore, ”I believe that as far as women are concerned you are behind the age too.”

”I am quite certain of it,” Rendel said, ”and it is therefore to be rejoiced over that the only woman I have ever thought of wanting should not insist on being in front of it.”

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